While packing up some of the mountains of crap that I have collected over the years this week, I came across three football trophies that I won as a teenager. Now, don’t start thinking that I was any good at the game, I wasn’t, as the nature of the football trophies will show.

Rather than winning awards for ‘player of the season’ or ‘top goal scorer’ (I actually never scored, well, at the right end anyway) I instead won the following three awards in the two seasons I played for my local team:

• Clubman of the Year
• Most Improved Player
• Most Improved Player

Let’s start with the ‘Clubman of the Year’ award first. This is the award you give to someone for, basically, turning up. I turned up every week, even for training, and didn’t cry off for any reason – therefore I got a trophy… nice.

This award was of course nowhere near as bad as winning the ‘Most Improved Player’ award… twice.

Just how bad do you have to be to win a trophy for improvement two years in a row? The level of the team was fairly low to begin with, and I was, in fairness, the worst player there when I started. We regularly lost games 6-0 (ironically in one of those games I scored an own goal and won man of the match) and we never went higher than second from bottom in the league.

We actually made it through to the semi-final of the cup in the second year, after receiving a bye in the first round and beating the worst team in the league in the quarter final – quite a cup-run. We lost the semi-final though, badly, to St Julians and a player who was reportedly the cousin of Nathan Blake (a former Cardiff City player).

Anyhow – I have football trophies, something every man should have from their youth. I just don’t have to tell everyone exactly what they’re for… assuming they don’t read this of course.

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If anyone saw the Manchester United v Spurs game on Saturday they’ll have witnessed possibly the worst refereeing decision in the history of football. With Tottenham leading 2-0 away to United, and the second half underway, referee Howard Webb awarded Manchester United the sort of penalty that only United get at Old Trafford.

Even the United fans could see it wasn’t a penalty. Ronaldo scored it, and Man U went on to win 5-2. Up until that point they didn’t look like even troubling Gomez, the Spurs keeper.

The significance of this of course is that should United have lost, which they were doing handsomely, Liverpool would have remained top and United couldn’t have afforded any more slip-ups, with Man City and Arsenal still to come.

Howard Webb, in his infinite incompetency, has probably awarded United the title.

Now, this naturally outraged Liverpool and Tottenham alike, with Spurs’ midfielder Jermaine Jenas stating:

One thing which struck me about it was that he [Webb] didn’t even think. It was like he’d already made his mind up when he came out for the second half that he was going to give something. I think it was a case of a referee crumbling under the pressure at Old Trafford really.

The atmosphere, the occasion, the importance of the match, a lot of factors take their toll when making decisions.

Quite an eloquent statement for a footballer, and spot on. No team would have got a decision like that anywhere else in world football. Those types of penalties only happen at Old Trafford, for Manchester United.

The FA apparently want Jenas to explain his words, giving him seven days to respond. However, I believe Jenas’ words are fairly self explanatory. If the FA is reading this, I think what Jenas was trying to say was this:

Howard Webb is a cheating bastard and cost us the game.

Simple.

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Last night I went to the local pub to watch the Champions League final between Man UTD and Chelski. The problem with this is, I live in Manchester and I’m a Liverpool fan; so naturally I was supporting Chelski. So there I was, surrounded by nouveaux Man UTD fans, listening to their stupid, moronic chants.

First off, the imbeciles were singing ‘Rooney, Rooney, Rooney’… which I naturally thought was ‘Munich, Munich, Munich’ – to which I was reliably informed not to sing as it wouldn’t have gone down well. No, they were chanting for Wayne Rooney, their Liverpudlian striker. This was promptly followed by a song about burning scousers on a bonfire, despite the only scouser actually playing in the game, playing for them. The aforementioned Wayne Rooney.

Dumb fuckers.

They then went on an anti-City chant, singing about how Man City should, and I quote ‘Fuck off home’. This was sung to the tune of ‘nick-nack-paddy-whack’, a cockney song… hmm, a bunch of United fans singing a cockney song while watching their team playing against a London club. I actually pointed this out to the room in my usual subtle style, shouting why are you dumb bastards singing a fucking cockney song? They didn’t really have an answer.

Then, when United scored through Ronaldo, the tossers became quite obnoxious. Luckily, it wasn’t long before Frank Lampard equalised, prompting the whole pub to go quiet… save for me. I was jumping up in the air cheering. The caused quite a stir, and some guy in his late 50s, in a Man UTD shirt obviously (actually, it was a ‘Manchester’ t-shirt, maybe he couldn’t afford a football shirt) came up to me and said I was a ‘marked man’. If I didn’t leave the pub I’d be dead by the end of the game.

I did ask him as politely as I could ‘How old are you?’, to which he replied ‘It doesn’t fuckin’ matter, you’re a dead man’.

Petrified, I ordered another round of Guinness. The woman next to me at the bar was pissing herself, and asked why the old man wanted to kill me just because I was a Chelsea fan in Manchester. I corrected her that, firstly, I’m a Liverpool supporter, and secondly, we’re in Stockport. Another fact that seemed completely alien to the ‘Manchester United’ fans.

Sadly the game ended with Terry and Anelka missing the decisive kicks, prompting some annoying celebrations from the pub. One kid, who must have been around 19, went round people hugging them. He came to me with his arms outstretched and, before he got to me, said ‘are you a United fan?’ as he approached. I said quite abruptly, ‘no’, and pushed him away.

He wasn’t happy. For some reason he wanted to ‘kick my head in’. Naturally he didn’t, being a typical United fan. Just like the old guy who said I was a ‘marked man’.

What’s worse is now all of the closet fans will be out, sporting their shirts that haven’t seen the light of day since about this time last year when United last won the Premiership.

It’s all summed up I guess by Sky Sports News yesterday morning when they interviewed some United fans in Red Square in Moscow. They had their Man U shirts on and a large Man U banner. ‘So where are you from?’ asked the presenter… ‘Essex’ said the glory hunting twat with a grin.

The roads around Manchester airport were very busy this morning, probably due to all the Man UTD fans fucking off back to London.

In fact I work with a guy who would make the perfect Man U fan; he doesn’t live in Manchester and he knows fuck all about football.

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For those who like their football laced with comedy and a topped with a liberal sprinkling of irony, Special K is back at Newcastle. This means more emotional, firey outbursts like this one without the restrictions of things like tactics to get in the way.

Expect Newcastle to be involved in more 4-3 losses and to entertain us all while still coming out empty handed at the end of the season. Can’t wait.

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